It IS an emergency. Feminism and the Lesbian community have FAILED these young women who display such conformist anti-female conservative beliefs about the appearances and behaviors that “make one” female. We have FAILED to impart the message that sex-based clothing standards as an example- are COMPLETELY ARBITRARY. I have been shopping in the “mens section” since childhood and never gave it a thought. Imagine my shock to read testimony after testimony from these young girls as they “shop in the mens section for the first time”. How they literally SHAKE with anxiety. How they hope no one SEES THEM. The TERROR the younger generation has of breaking “the rules” AS WOMEN.

It’s just sad and dangerous. They don’t even now about the consequences of lifelong hormone treatment! There aren’t many studies. I know from intersex people that this treatment made them very ill. So perhaps trans people face the same problems later in life? Do you know trans people who are ill because of hormone treatment?

it was painful to watch these. It looked like some kind of a fad phenonenon. It also looked like they were reaching out to find people with whom they could have community (as member of this age group usually do, since they are moving toward adulthood and social groups of their own choosing). The really bummer part is that they then find the “trans” community and the price of membership is horribly high. Also, this is the age for identity searching, trying out various identities, and identity crises. This is much harder for girls who are lesbians for the reasons we all understand. Trying on all kinds of identities is ok, including one that the culture (mistakenly) identifies as male. It would be ok, that it is if it didn’t cause permanent harm. It would be a way to learn, if it were only adopting clothing, hairstyles, body language associated with being male in this culture. But instead, they get these Frankenstein makeovers and take substances toxic to their bodies. All I can feel is grief about making such a choice at so young an age.

The parents are being horribly misled by the doctors. How will they feel down the line when things don’t work out as advertised? Horribly guilty, I imagine, but also they should be horribly angry at the medical professionals that they trusted.

I also wonder if caring parents are terrified that their lesbian or gay teen will commit suicide, since the suicide rate is so high amongst these groups, so they see the surgery as life-saving, like taking a dangerous drug to save your life. The parents are terrified if their child is depressed. This sets aside the kinds of hatred, bullying, and shunning that can be so damaging to teens, that are much better candidates for reasons a child might commit suicide.

I clicked on the youtube versions, and looked at some other videos by them. The one who called herself Kieth (previously Katie) in a previous video looked much happier. She talks about being a lesbian and a Christian and that those two things are not often found together. I wonder if this is partly designed to help her feel she fits in her religious community. But on the video you posted she admits that she did not feel like a boy growing up, she felt like a girl.

I agree with you Katie about the desire for community, for tribe, as a huge factor in the trans trend. As the woman in the second video states, she’s tried goth, she’s tried being a “barbie doll”, she’s been through indie, she’s been through chav, etc. She’s tried on all the pre-packaged youth subcultures “and none of them fitted me”. She kept closeted about her lesbianism, only comfortable coming out as “liking girls” in the context of “being a boy”. It’s interesting because she has not yet- neither of these young women have yet perfected the trans indoctrination, the trans narrative that they will ultimately adopt as part of that tribe.
Trans indoctrination offers a systemic irreversible body modification track, where each step leads to the next, and each is applauded and supported as a right of passage by other members of the trans cult, whether the others are approaching that milepost or have passed it themselves. FTM trans is defined by these body mod markers. The trans forums and message boards have “tickers” on them where the trenders can mark the timeline of their approach, then passage of the various milestones of the transgender “journey”. For example they will show “two months until T”, “seven months since starting T”, “18 days until top surgery”, “five months since top surgery”, etc. These timelines denote their status among the tribe. Trans who don’t actively make body mods, or those who “stop the clock”, going off T for example, and detransitioners and regretters are actively shunned.
Another example of the body mob indoctrination is the binding process. Young women bind their breasts so their breasts are hidden or minimized. This crushes the breast tissue so the breasts become flat flesh sacs which hang like pancakes. Breast removal or “top surgery” therefor becomes no longer optional since the breasts have been permanently mutilated. One can either have double mastectomies or have flapping skin flaps dangling on their chest. After the breasts are removed the cultists “hand down” their binder to another FTM – often a teen who cannot purchase one online themselves without their parents assistance- so they can begin the process.

Thanks everyone for your comments. I was a little concerned in posting these videos that someone might leave some sort of mocking comment, which is the last thing these young women need, but thankfully no one has.
I think we’ve all noted how striking it is how constricted the views of transgenderists are on gender. Bev Jo touched on this in her FTM article. The idea that females MUST OBEY the social conventions of femininity and if they do not they MUST be OTHER than female! The “I feel so much more comfortable in male (better made more utilitarian not-sexualized more comfortable) clothing therefore I MUST BE MALE”. The millions of FTM trans narratives of getting their first “male” haircut.
This young FTM woman vlogs about her “Hair Dysphoria”:

Even conservatively cut women’s clothing is more sexualized that most people are willing to admit. It’s designed to show off specific body parts, rather than the whole person. Many girls and women know this instinctively, but are made to feel ashamed of their negative reaction to stereotypical female attire.

Ways To Shame A Girl Into Looking Girlier:

1. “But you look so pretty in a dress! Most girls want to look pretty! Why don’t you? You must have low self-esteem! The school psychologist said low self-esteem leads to bad grades, and it worries me that you only want to wear jeans and shirts like your brother’s. We want you to have more self-esteem so you’ll be successful in school and in life, so put on the pink dress already. What do you mean, you hate the way it looks on you? You look pretty. You must have low self-esteem. DON’T SLAM THE DOOR, YOUNG LADY!”

2. “But…that looks so…MASCULINE. You don’t want people thinking you’re a boy, do you? Or… they might even think you’re a lesbian or something.”

3. “OHMYGODOHMYGOD I’m so SORRY, I’m so SORRY!!!!!!! She’s a girl, everyone! Oh no, oh no, oh NOOOO! I’m so SORRY, oh my GOD, this is AWFUL, I thought she was a BOY! Oh NO, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, I totally apologize, it’s just that, well, she was running around in the dirt with the boys and some of them have long hair, too, and she’s wearing pants and a t-shirt just like them, and oh no, how could I have done that, I’m so SORRY!!!!!!!!!!”

I don’t think that anyone that doesn’t hang out with wimmin in their teens and twenties can understand how common this phenomenon truly is.

One of the women in the videos posted above mentions engaging in self harm, but isn’t chest binding and injecting yourself with T also self-harm, just socially and medically accepted? If she feels good shopping in the men’s department, good for her! She has figured out something about herself. No need to ruin her body though. This woman, the one in the second video, doesn’t even seem to believe she is a man herself, because she ends by commenting, “it almost is like I really am a guy.” Thus, she is acknowledging that she is not really one.

I feel great compassion for these women and hope their lives greatly improve in the future. But that won’t happen without a lot of work on their part (unfortunately…because we still live in an individualistic society) as well as simple luck, and supportive people in their lives.

How MANY young women “transitioning” are there? The estimations of the so-called trans share in the population have always been tiny, and yet, from youtube and tumblr and friends of friends etc. the number of “FTMs” seems to be exploding. The estimates are definitely wrong and out of date. The trans cult seems to be just swallowing up young women, How on earth is no one but radfems noticing?

I mean, of course, the cultists won’t say anything, but how is it possible that not one well-meaning funfem has cottoned on to the fact that something is off about the way their beloved transness is rapidly obliterating gender non-conforming women, especially those in their teens and early 20s. My guess is that a number of them have noticed, but they’re too conformist and chickenshit to say anything or openly discuss it. Funfems are cowards. And the number of young women they’re letting down is huge, and growing by the day.

It’s gynocide. One of the most cruel things that has ever happened to a whole population of young women. It fills me with rage and horror, as a form of female infanticide. Males and their minions are destroying these young women from the inside.

This is what make me spontaneously burst out as a lesbian separatist and say, “Stop breeding and stop feeding males”. Women hate me for saying that, but it is my cry for female survival.

“One of the women in the videos posted above mentions engaging in self harm, but isn’t chest binding and injecting yourself with T also self-harm, just socially and medically accepted?” WOJ, I was thinking something similar, only related this to something like an eating disorder.

Eating disorder – delusions about one’s physical body (feels too fat when is actually starving)
Eating disorder – Response to misogynist cultural stereotypes
Eating disorder – social reinforcement, often with girls sharing tips for purging, etc.
Eating disorder – living in an insane environment that cannot be controlled, so wants to control her own eating/body.

I think that each of these characteristics could also apply to body modification having to do with “gender identity.” I am thinking specifically about women in the points listed below. There’s a different dynamic for men, I believe. I’m calling it Gender Modification Disorder (I made that up, but I think there should be such a category.

Gender modification disorder – delusions about one’s physical body (feels too female, hates breasts, etc.)
Gender modification disorder – Response to misogynist cultural stereotypes
Gender modification disorder – social reinforcement as evidenced by the videos above
Gender modification disorder – living in an insane and dangerous environment for women that cannot be controlled, so wants to control her own body

These are some characteristics I’m familiar with, there may be others.

I’d also be curious to see if the statistics for eating disorders have gone down or up. Is this replacing eating disorders, or is the culture just spinning out of control, this being an additional manifestation?

KatieS, I don’t know that the rate of EDs have gone down, but many of the young ftms I’ve known have struggled with EDs and/or self injury (SI) before transition. I’m not really close to any post-op transition ftms, so I don’t know if this is still something they do, or if the chest binding, etc. has replaced it.

She also talks about “harmful cultural practices” quite a lot (for example in her book Beauty and Misogyny) – I don’t know if she’s classified transgenderism under this label, but I think it’s pretty appropriate.

You do such brilliant postings about exposing the whole trans phenomenon, Gallus, and how false it is and how damaging. I love how you’ve shown the most disgusting murdering men who claim to be us, and use their words against them — and also the tragedy of young women and Lesbians mutilating themselves.

Being a Separatist for almost 40 years has protected me from even being tempted to try to really understand FTMs, beyond the obvious wanting privilege. Males are our enemies and are destroying the earth, so who would want to be one? I hated boys for torturing me, other girls, and animals when I was little, and I never wanted to be one.

Loup, you described it all so well. Being a girl means being humiliated and oppressed. Of course girls want that to stop and they see how much better boys are treated. The increase in the pornifying and sexualizing of all females either turns girls into wanting to be porn queens or into escaping being female — or both. It is so horrifying. I think it’s very revealing that Della (Volcano) Grace first had breast implants and then had them cut off to identify as male. The girls in these video are not ultra-feminine, but they are not remotely Butch. It’s a stereotype that it’s Butches who are most of the FTMs, but I’m seeing very few who are Butch, and in Loren Cameron’s book, “Body Alchemy,” which is her photographic record of many FTMs, they all, including her, are clearly Fem. And now Loren, like Pat Califia, is claiming to be a gay man, which means she’s a bizarre variation of fag hag, and has come full circle to being a bisexaul or het woman again — except this time her man claims to be gay (which of course he isn’t.) As they age, the natural progression of these women is seeming to lead to being back with men, which is full circle in terms of worshipping males.

I’m saying this partly because of course we are upset about these girls having no support in rejecting male-identified “femininity” to where they think they are male and are mutilating themselves. But do we get as upset at the massive numbers of teenaged girls who are having plastic surgery to feminize their faces and breast implants? Of course we’re concerned, but I think more of them being a lost cause. Really, though, it’s a flip side of the same issue.

This weekend I went to the three day “Queer Women of Color Film Festival,” which was wonderful. It was started by Madeline Lim, a Butch from Singapore. She taught many of the filmmakers at the event. There were only a handful of trannies that I saw, and too many extreme Fems, but I also saw a lot of flannel shirted Lesbians! Of course it wasn’t as wonderful as the Seventies in terms of almost everyone looking like that, but still…I have rarely seen so many Butches in one place. Instead of being only 10%, it was closer to 40%. Many were quite young. Many races, and especially Asian. And in spite of the “Queer” name, a lot were proudly Butch and proudly Lesbian.

Bev Jo thank you for your wonderful comment.
By the way, Della (Volcano) Grace left a comment on your post at RadFem Hub which was censored. She said that she was born with a congenital anomaly which caused one breast to grow large at puberty and one to stay flat. She said she went to a plastic surgeon to have a reduction made of the large breast but while she was under anaesthesia, against her will and without her consent, the surgeon inserted breast implants instead of the agreed upon procedure. She also said she no longer “identifies as male.”
Why a radical feminist site would censor a woman talking about this sort of medical abuse or prevent her right of rebuttal to a public account of her medical history is mystifying. But RadFem Hub censored her comment. Wish I had taken a copy of the comment so you could see it.

I don’t know if I’m allowed, since you disabled comments on the other post, but now that you’ve mentioned another bizarre case of censorship on RadfemHub, I really have to ask this. Have you ever received an explanation as to why BevJo’s post over there was considered problematic? And why you were banned from there?

If you don’t want this comment here, please delete it, but I’m now having serious doubts over supporting RadfemHub, and feel that I have to try and find out what’s been happening with that site.

No, no explanation whatsoever. But you’re right, I don’t even want to talk about them. I did here because it was directly relevant to Bev’s comment. RadFem Hub is just getting started, maybe they will change the way they do things. Who knows? I certainly hope so because a free and open site for radical feminist conversation and ideas is a wonderful idea, that’s why I joined them in the first place. Or maybe someone else will do it- there are plenty of fantastic radfem bloggers and writers who were never invited to join. Anyway unless something requires mention – as I felt Bev’s comment did about Della and her censored comment- I doubt I’ll be allowing any further conversation about it here. As a final clarification- NO, no one ever reached out to me or explained in any way. Which pisses me off all over again just thinking about it. So I’m gonna try not to think about it.😛

Nice to see this someone in a (popular, and often Neanderthal) venue like Psychology Today pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. Phyllis Burke did a great takedown of gender pseudo-science in the 90s in her book Gender Shock, which was favorably reviewed in the mainstream press, but she still toes the trans party line (i.e. theories of innate gender characteristics are baloney, except when you’re talking about transsexuals, in which case all that conformity is suddenly okay.)

I heard that there was a psychiatric conference organised around critically analysing transsexuality it in London, but trans activists threatened to destroy the careers of anyone who attended, so it was cancelled (sorry, don’t have any references – I heard it in a speech made by Sheila Jeffreys). But this is good: if psychiatrists are starting to realise that something’s wrong, that’s getting very mainstream.

Thank you for the heads-up Jilla. She has written on her blog about two issues, one is the Parental Alienation Syndrome and the other is the Gender Dysphoria of Childhood. I’m glad that the deadline has been extended till July 15th. I think that these are two areas that radfems understand very well and some of us have had experiences with. We are articulate and I hope everyone will comment.

I agree, Frances. Actually, we need our L separate (Lesbian Separatism!) because G and B aren’t our friends as a group either.

Thanks for the info, Gallus. That is outrageous that Della was censored. Still, I’m suspicious of her story, I guess because of her history as a pornographer. That sounds very strange that a surgeon would just do implants like that without permission. If she had chosen to have that done, but changed her mind, she might want to alter her story — especially after having a mastectomy and identifying as FTM.

My pal, Katinka, knows a lot about her and I’ll check with her about details. In any event, she did identify as male for a while.

Anyway, thank you again for your brilliant work on behalf of all females!

Thank you back, Gallus. Yes, we all should have had the right to have seen it.

Katinka said she got her info from an article where Della was interviewed in the British DIVA. She also said Della did a photo book called Love Bites, which was sado-masochist porn, and that she had done a book on “dragkings” that Katinka thought was more offensive, Lesbian-hating porn. I’ll report back if we get more info.

Paula Caplan had some other posts of interest at the Psychology Today blog. This one is very alarming: about a diagnosis called “Parental Alienation Syndrome” that is already being used as a cover for child sexual abuse and also prosecuting mothers who try to get help. Making it official will do much more harm to women and protect child rapists. It calls for people to contact the group putting together the new diagnosis, but the deadline to do so has passed, unfortunately.

“It’s gynocide. One of the most cruel things that has ever happened to a whole population of young women. It fills me with rage and horror, as a form of female infanticide. Males and their minions are destroying these young women from the inside.

This is what make me spontaneously burst out as a lesbian separatist and say, “Stop breeding and stop feeding males”. Women hate me for saying that, but it is my cry for female survival.” -Mary Sunshine

This is why I’m still so Separatist! And what keeps my DykeAmazon heart, body, mind and spirit still fighting this battle on and off line! You are NOT alone Mary!

I saw all of the videos, and as a Butch loving Butch(and have been for 30 years since I came out in 1981), I found the young Katie to be potentially a handsome Butch if she could love her femaleness, and very badly for the one who damaged her ribs/body with the breast binding in her sleeveless t, strong arms and you could still see her breasts. I thought: these are HANDSOME WOMEN, who could grow up to be PROUD BUTCH DYKES, what the hell is wrong with them, that they gotta go get packers, piss standing up, bind their breasts as tightly as women used to have whalebone corsets put on them because that was the only way they could be seen as acceptable for the longed for hourglass figure. I came to the conclusion around the breastbinding thing a while back that IT WAS NO DIFFERENT. Basically, it’s unacceptable to be a female unless you CONFORM and please men, and part of the definition of femininity at least is to conform no matter what to ‘attract a man’ no matter the damage to their body. Breast surgeries, breast implantations, whale bone corsets ect. ect. ect.

NONE of these individuals could convince me on ANY LEVEL that they are dudes….to me they all look like androgynous female Lesbians…and just like with Iran, LESBIAN DESIRE IS NOT ACCEPTABLE (OR HOMOSEXUALITY FOR THAT MATTER)THUSLY ONE MUST TRANSITION TO BE WITH A WOMAN! So that’s one line I took in. I thought I was a boy too. I hated girly clothes, I didn’t want my hair mussed or fussed with, even though it was long, I didn’t want it curled or styled, and one of my Lesbian initiations was having it cut short when I came out…like MANY LESBIANS did in the early ’80’s..it was considered a ‘rite of passage’ into Lesbianism. Not just always for Butches, but more androgynous types too…and if later in life they wanted to grow it back they did….mine just got shorter the more confident I became of my Butch Dyke identity. And I ALWAYS PREFERRED men’s/boys clothes, or the girls/women’s clothes that were the most androgynous and least revealing and more tailored, not frilly.

I mean this is like we’ve gone back to the ’40’s or 50’s where IT WAS REALLY UNACCEPTABLE TO BE A DYKE…and one either had to ‘pass’ as a dude if that hardcore Butch, or one had to conform and never mention one’s homosexuality except in the bar scene. There seems almost the same level of unacceptability like ‘well, she was more of a Lesbian because she didn’t want to be with a dude like me!’ almost a putdown of Katie’s former GF. I mean 16 years old and she already decided she hates her body enough to remove her breasts, take ‘t’, ect. and be a dude…so she can date girls. That’s called SELF HATRED and LESBOPHOBIA. And if you listen to most of these Ftm’s/genderqueer types they really do hate Lesbians, because ONLY Lesbians are honest with them. Like you want to be a dude, but you show up to Dyke March? And anytime Lesbians want to assemble or hang out at a party or an event for women only, you make it ‘women and trans’, and most are all bio-female women and just like these young women, they call themselves ‘queer’ what a fantastic bunch of queers, and YET they all look so obviously female.

The one with all the piercings whose gone thru all the scenes, is a self destructive cutter and it’s obvious this is just another body modification for her to a more extreme extent, but it is her mental illness and destructiveness towards herself, probably resulting from incest or serious abuse that makes her that way. And there is no questioning of how many of these young girls have been violated in their female bodies, and instead want to identify with the perpetrator and eliminate their womonhood so they are not reminded of their victimization. And with all the FTM’s around them, like somebody said above, it being like one big cult and rite of passage as you go through each stage….there’s no way they can…till they meet Dykes who are PROUD of their Female bodies, minds and spirits and their love sexual, emotional and spiritual of other womyn on all levels!

It hurts me at the core to see these painful self confessions, and I’ve witnessed PLENTY of them on Youtube. The worst of them all was Chastity(Chaz) Bono’s self indulgent and outright abusive to her partner documentary and the scariness that she is ADVOCATING for young trans kids hanging out with one who considers herself a boy…and that they will have hormone blocking drugs put in them at age 10 so they don’t develope puberty sexual characteristics and at about 16 or so, they will be given the opposite sex hormones..that part UTTERLY DISGUSTED ME…instead of letting these kids be and not having to frame them into “if you play with dolls and wear dresses or like pink you’re a girl” and “if you play with war toys and like primary colors and boys clothes you’re a boy”. This is so fucking retrograde.

Whereas what I came up with, were Butches were PROUD to be strong powerful Females, and the Amazon leaders of the impending ‘Women’s Revolution’, and if they had shame in their bodies,which I did, we were taught or taught each other PRIDE INSTEAD, including Dyke Pride….and that we were taking back ALL OUR POWERS AS WOMYN, and that WE COULD BE ANYTHING WE WANTED TO BE AND DRESS ANYWAY WE WANTED TO AS DYKES AND AS WOMYN, and if a Dyke, a Butch or a woman was wearing ‘men’s clothes’ because she was a woman, it automatically was ‘women’s clothes’! We questioned ALL THESE THINGS, and it was about EXPANDING what womonhood means for all bio females, NOT CONTRACTING IT, as the FTM and trans community does, shaming these potential Butches/ androgynous/boyish/tomboyish young women into transition as a solution to their problems for ‘not fitting in’.
-In DykeAmazon Sisterhood,
-FeistyAmazon

One more thing: while I will be going to SF Dyke March this year, we will NOT be watching the Parade, but probably will just go to the Celebration area. The only part that is still so Lesbian oriented that I love is Dykes on Bikes. After them, it’s all pretty standard, but WHAT I DON’T WANT TO SEE IS THAT THEY’VE MADE CHASTITY(CHAZ) BONO THE CELEBRITY GRAND MARSHAL! How many Butch dykes have they done that for? How many radical Lesbians of ANY stripe in the community? But Chaz Bono who has done nothing for anyone but her self-indulgent self, gets to be Celebrity Grand Marshal because she’s made a self hating video of her whole trans process. And what an asshole she was in that video. But hey, she’s known. Only Cher has problems with her transition. And only Cher made any sense in that video!It must hurt her at the core that her daughter, who I’m sure went through many pressures to feminize being Cher’s daughter, that it was hard enough for her to accept her Lesbianism, but eventually she did, but now that daughter wants to be a ‘son’…and doesn’t even look it! She just looks like a big butch dyke in male drag! And she wasnt’ even Butch at all as a Lesbo…like lesbianism is just another passage FTM’s go through before they find their ‘true selves’ when the truth is that AS an FTM or dude, Chaz won’t have to be pressured to wear clothes she doesn’t like or do girly things anymore, because now she gets to be a dude and assume even a small level of male privilege she never had as a Lesbian! No, I don’t want to see her going down the Parade route!
-MasterAmazon

OK, I’ll come clean. I was directed to this site by a friend who finds it interesting though often distressing. This is my story. I was born female over half a century ago in England. From the age of 4 or round about – the time, anyway, when a gendered identity kicks in – I was confused. people said i was a girl but I had a deep conviction that I was something else. I couldn’t identify with the girls I saw in fiction, except for the ones who wanted to be boys, like “Jo” in Little Women but I wasn’t interested in typically “boy” stuff like sport. The idea that there were men and women simply didn’t make sense. Let me explain; this was not from observing gender roles or social concepts of gender but from an innate feeling of incongruence between body and mind. I expected hair to grow on my chest at puberty; I assumed I would have a beard one day; I was puzzled by my absence of penis to the point where I felt sick undressed. Periods didn’t bother me as it was an excuse to get out of PE and stay clothed.
Girls and women, I knew, were “other”; they shouldn’t have been but they were. I assumed I would marry one and was confused when my parents found this odd and silly. When I eventually kissed one, though, it felt wrong and unstimulating, so I guessed i wasn’t a lesbian.
The gay bars in the 70’s were my refuge and I began to find some of the men and women sexually attractive but there was no-one like “me”. Eventually, I discovered the autobiographies of transsexual women (male to female) and some sense of solidarity. It took until 1995 to realize that there were transsexual men, too and that maybe I was one.
In 2004 I turned 50 and decided to make this my Golden Year; I investigated the current path to transition, saw the appropriate medical and psychiatric professionals for the prescribed amount of time and began my journey. I take testosterone, am planning chest surgery and have never been happier. I’m real. I’m here. Sorry if you don’t like that but transsexual men exist. We’re not some sort of extremely butch woman in denial, we are something else entirely. Oh, and I still fancy men. 🙂

Thanks for coming clean. Thanks for sharing your story. I hear you about how you were confused about gender roles from about the age of four, and that you never related to female characters in fiction and that the gender divide just didn’t make sense. That is very typical for females.
You say that female gender roles didn’t fit you but you also say that this was not from observing gender roles. Clearly you observed sex roles, as in the fiction you gave as an example. And they didn’t fit you, except for Jo.
At puberty you agonized over a lack of penis and felt sick undressed but menstruation and bleeding out of your vagina every month didn’t bother you.
You always held yourself apart from other women and girls. And thought that you would marry one, even though you felt it was wrong and unstimulating. Your refuge was the gay bars even though you, a female, thought women were wrong and unstimulating.
After 50 years you decided this was your “Golden Year” and decided to treat yourself to some body-modding male privilege. And a beard. I know just how you feel. I always knew I was meant to take charge of things and make my own way in life. When I was 4 I saw myself as a future successful entrepreneur. Or maybe a Senator or Supreme Court Justice. After 50 years of agony I discovered Amway products- a business that lets me succeed the way I should. I investigated the business and followed the appropriate protocol for the prescribed amount of time and began my journey. I’m real. I’m here. Speaking of coming clean I can offer you a kick-ass deal on some all-purpose cleanser.😉

No but seriously it sounds like you’ve hated women your entire life. Shame you actually ARE a woman. Oh wait, you’re fixing that. Bully for you. Obvs life as a 50 year old man is totes better than life as a 50 year old woman. Works for any age. What about the penis? Got $$$ for that? Hate to see you agonize for 50 more years before even looking into it. Oh wait testosterone will cut your life short by 15 years so scratch that.

Thanks for letting us know you still fancy men :- ) That seems like an important distinction for you to make. Good thing you don’t fancy women, right? Like a dirty Lesbian!
I have no doubt that you are not “a butch woman in denial” or any other sort of butch woman.🙂

Dissecting and poking fun at young people’s identity struggles in the abstract, using their difficulties finding ways to express themselves, it’s just pretty crass really. If you’re really that concerned, why don’t you try befriending or supporting some young trans people, learning what makes them tick, why they feel the way they do instead of reposting their youtube confessionals for you and all your friends to gather around shaking your heads in mock concern at? How about trying to inspect your own assumptions about what’s best or worse from them? How about taking people one by one and at least trying not to be judgemental about how they describe themselves and what that means*?

What you are doing isn’t concern about these young people’s lives. You are just using some video posts by teenagers in order to rhetorically back up your pre-existing beliefs, which mostly seem to have nothing to do with any real practical support for making young gender-variant people’s lives more bearable.

* As a genderqueer trans person who has done a significant amount of supporting trans friends and peers going through emotional difficulties relating to identity and gender including people who ultimately decided they were best living in the sex role they were assigned at birth, trying not to pre-judge what people have to say about their identities or encourage people down any particular pathway has been the fundamental ethical basis of being usefully supportive, and most other trans people I know who do that sort of support take this as a basic ethical basis from which to be trying to help each other.

Wow this is a really gross comment. No one has poked fun at these young women. We take them GRAVELY SERIOUS here, unlike you. Unlike you, our concern is not “mock concern”. WE are supporting these young women, unlike you. WE are listening to these young women, unlike you. WE respect these young women, and ALL young women, unlike you. WE are offering REAL support, unlike you and your concern-trolling.

You and the trans above you are THE ONLY people in this thread not responding to the actual thoughts and words of the young women in the videos. I seriously doubt you even watched them which was A CONDITION OF COMMENTING HERE. Total disrespect to these young women. TOTAL FUCKING DISRESPECT.

Oh? But referring to self-identified transsexual men by calling them women isn’t? How many times have you heard the old insult that lesbians fancy wome because they’re too ugly to get a man? Or that they want to be men? Plenty, I’ll be bound. But never from me or any other trans person I know. We have the common courtesy to respect the identities of others and not call it into question under thr guise of “concern”. Incidentally, I have plenty of lesbian friends who respect me, sme I’ve known for over 30 years. I wonder what the average age of readers and writers here is? And I wonder how many of you have been assaulted for walking down the street holding hands with a female partner? Who can remember when women were not allowed in the lounge bar of a hotel unaccmpnied by a man in case they were prostitutes? I can and I campaigned to change these laws and attitudes. I also remember documentaries where young lesbians came out and the “expert” narrator saying that they were misguided and mentlly ill. If you want to offer real support to these young people, I suggest you actually have the guts to talk with them and not abuse their YouTube efforts as a prop for your mutual back-slapping.
Incidentally, my comment about fancying (some0 men was to emphasise that plenty of us do NOT come from the lesbian community and are therefore NOT abandoning it. We are who we are, just like you.

Which of these young women’s videos are you talking about here? Oh that’s right- unlike everyone else who followed the conditions for commenting you haven’t bothered. These young women produced media because they wanted people to view and discuss it. But you say if we really cared we would ignore the media they have created (as you have) and stalk them down and try to talk to them personally. EEeewwww. No thanks, I think I’ll pass on stalking young girls on the internet. Instead, I’ll continue (unlike you) to respect the media they have created to be viewed and discussed. No one cares how many Lesbians you have known. I disagree with you that Lesbianism or sexuality in general should never be discussed either. No one cares about your Golden Year Transition.
DO NOT COMMENT AGAIN WITHOUT VIEWING AND DISCUSSING THE VIDEOS AS WAS OUTLINED IN THE POST- NO SPESHUL SNOWFLAKE EXEMPTIONS.

Remember when young women were told by “concerned ” people that they were not really lesbians but in need of support and guidance? That is was, “just a phase”? I do – and I supported my lesbian friends in coming out.
Remember when it was legal to pay a woman less than a man to do the same job? I do – and I campaigned for this to change, standing in front of police horses.
Remember when you could go to prison for procuring an abortion? I do – and I campaigned for it to be legal and safe.
No, I don’t hate women. What I do hate is the use by one oppressed group of the techniques that were used on them to oppress and trivialize the lived experience of other minorities. The choice to transition is none of your business, any more than a lesbian’s choice to have a child is any of mine although I would support her right to do so in a heteronormative society.

And you are using those techniques right now to silence women’s discussion about women’s issues.
DO NOT COMMENT AGAIN WITHOUT VIEWING AND DISCUSSING THE VIDEOS AS WAS OUTLINED IN THE POST- NO SPESHUL SNOWFLAKE EXEMPTIONS.

” why don’t you try befriending or supporting some young trans people”

Yeah support these special snowflakes! Let they force you to adress them in their favorite fantasy pronouns. Open you space to wannabe women and neeeever ever question their actions. Be an ally of the gender cultists!

“You are just using some video posts by teenagers in order to rhetorically back up your pre-existing beliefs”

You mean the beliefs where women always love pink, wear dresses and are hyper feminine? Or that children need hormone blockers? Or the belief that being female is just an identity and not a biological fact? What about the belifes that loving dresses makes you a woman? These are pre- existing belives!

I did actually try to get to know trans people and to engage with them in discussions, but my support of trans activism meant having to give up criticizing gender. Gender is at the heart of my oppression and at the root of my feminist activism.

As long as gender exists, women will be oppressed, because gender is nothing more than a social tool of oppression. But without gender trans-gendered people have nothing to transition from or to transition in to.

Change whatever you can or want about your appearance. Change, your name, change your attitude, or what have you. Just don’t think for a second that it actually makes you a man or a woman. It doesn’t make a man “like us” and it doesn’t make a woman “a man”.

The videos are very sad in many ways. Just the idea that young women can’t get a haircut they like, or shop for clothes they like… this pressure to use very strong drugs (T) that can alter your entire personality, and the lack of a strong lesbian community that can be there for these women.

Haven’t seen a flannel shirt in years either, now that you mention it. Eeek, I don’t have any left either I guess, but hey, it’s southern california…

The trans craze is going to explode in lawsuits, people mad that the FDA didn’t intervene, and doctors are going to be vilified for malpractice. Just as lobotomy is an outrage today. So what is it about young women who are so focused on “gender” conformity to the point of doing all of this? You mean to tell me that lesbians who broke clothing taboos back in the day didn’t have plain old courage. To go against female conditioning as a woman is a huge act of rebellion, it was then it is now!

How does one “nick” a cock, “Anonymus” ?
Nick as in steal? We’ve all just stolen a big cock in our vaginas?
I don’t think any of us has stolen your cock Anonymous. Perhaps you’ve had it surgically removed when you weren’t looking.

Ok, so here’s MY 50th “Golden Year”, as a lifelong Butch DykeAmazon, which hasn’t been all so ‘Golden’. To start off, I celebrated my birthday last August with my beloved partner, and two days later threw a party for myself and my community to celebrate my 50th year at Elderflower Womonspirit Festival. I announced it to the list, and I brought many giveaways, decorations and some cakes. Other women gifted me by their own choice with small and larger items, alot with chocolate cuz they knew I liked chocolate. One DykeAmazon gave me a beautiful wooden Labryis she made, lifesize, and painted with beautiful decorations, which I have on display in my bedroom and look at everyday. That, along with a pair of Harley Davidson leather boots my partner gave me, were the most special presents I got for my 50th Birthday, that I will always treasure….EWF went well, and I had a good time last year, and it meant so much to celebrate my 50th on the Land in my community!

At the same time, my family INSISTED they too wanted to celebrate my 50th birthday, and I told them not that week since I was going to the Land, to my yearly women’s camping festival(they don’t know it also deeply feeds my spirituality as well), so we would be getting together the end of August. WELL.

Against my better judgement and their insistence I said ‘yes’ and never should have. Amongst various signs, the first day waiting for the plane, it was seriously delayed, we thought maybe we shoulda gone home right then and there….then when my brother picked us up, he hit a traffic cone, and I knew it wouldn’t be good. He drove drunk back to his house, where we were staying because I had very little work last summer and we could not afford our own place or to rent a car. As it was, we were SUPPOSED to stay with my sister in law, where it’s safer, but she betrayed us and we ended up at my brother’s house(originally my mom’s house which he got) instead….the first night went ok.

The next day we were going to a Rockies baseball game and my father was so cold to me, I told him that we should ride with his wife who was going to the game, he was skipping out(bladder infection). Instead, we ended up with my nephew driving us(my brother’s son) and he too was drunk driving! That evening when we stopped off before going back to the house at Safeway, my partner went in to buy a few grocery items, and my nephew got really nasty with me and we really got into it. I told him I was DONE with him, and wouldn’t put up with him treating me that way.

The next day at the party, my brother was cooking up a storm of ribs and chicken(which I requested for my birthday meal). THAT I did really appreciate. His live in girlfriend was helping. I told him in no uncertain terms that my nephew was NOT welcome at the party. My father comes in and asks about my nephew who he favors and I tell him we are not discussing that subject, and he yells at me and tells me ‘I won’t tell him what he can discuss or not’, a power issue…on MY ‘supposed’ 50th birthday party. He is generally hostile to me. I don’t see why I’m out there. The cake is unveiled, my niece who is at cooking school, a very sullen young woman, has a huge gravestone on the cake which has my name and RIP. I am horrified! I have one bite of the cake, it is pretty bad. That’s it, I won’t eat anymore of it(but thoroughly enjoy the ribs and chicken).

My father proceeds to spend all his time talking to my sister in law, who he has ALWAYS favored over me, because after all, even though she is just as fat as I am, she is ‘successful’ in her job, i.e. hasnt’ gone thru the layoffs and down times in construction I have, and is in a scientific field, as he is, and she’s heterosexual(though I suspect otherwise deep down somewhere, though in complete denial), and she gave him two grandkids after all…..my brother’s girlfriend who he dislikes,myself, and my partner are COMPLETELY IGNORED! The 50th ‘Golden’ Birthday girl(moi) feels completely ignored at her own ‘party’. Both my partner and I are Butch. When I had a Femme partner, my Dad talked with her. His wife chats on and on like a bird, filling up space saying nothing. All I get for my birthday presents, thinking it might be something nice, is 3 Star Trek books written by William Shatner and they are all old. That is, I know his wife got them at a recycled book exchange. They are comfortable so it’s not a matter of money. Of course I’m disappointed. I try not to show it. I almost feel like crying writing this.

That night, my partner,myself and my brother’s girlfriend are talking about family dynamics and the family, my brother is passed out from drinking and smoking pot in his bedroom. We find out the 3 of us have some commonalities, and she accepts us being Witches and is into some of that, along with some other commonalities(clean and sober). She is very fearful of my nephew who that morning, the morning of my party, raged and took all his stuff and moved it out, which is why I didn’t want him at hte party, and the way he treated me the night before. She says he can be very violent. This woman is really in fear. I’ve never seen a battered woman close up before, in her state of fear. All of a sudden, she hears a noise…..she’s extremely fearful. The gate jingled, she goes to the living room and looks at the window. He drove up(my nephew) and he drives away….we try to calm her down.

An hour later we see a car pull up again….it is him. She is in a state of high alert. He comes to the door, we have it locked, she has proceeded to lock everything. We tell him to go. He won’t. My partner sees something in the band of his pants, possibly a weapon, we don’t know. I call the cops, and I guess he called my brother, who bursts into the kitchen, wrestling the phone from me and slamming it down, his hand cocked back as if to hit me, I get into a karate stance, my partner comes in and he puts his hand down. He proceeds to say some very nasty things and kicks me out of the house. The police arrive, thank goodness there’s a female cop(real cute dyke at that)…and we go through her, and a couple others….my nephew left before they came. The girlfriend retreats to the bedroom…no ally there. So it’s two dykes and my drunken brother who owns the house. We are fearful. I KNOW my brother, and what would happen if we stick around. I ask the cops to wait, and we pack everything up real quick like. They escort us to a safe motel in that town. Very happy 50th Golden Birthday party!!!! I have NEVER been in a cop car before in the back, and thank goodness I’m going for safety. I could have had my brother arrested for hanging up on a 911 call, but I don’t with my partner’s suggestion. If he was violent and had hit me, I would have.

We have 3 days before our flights out, and so we have 3 days to kill to think about all this. We call both recovery hotlines*(being clean and sober) and domestic violence hotlines. The next day we visit my college campus, and we end up at the women’s center talking to the women there. That was very healing for us, and they are completely supportive and of course understand about domestic violence. My brother calls me while I’m there. Of course he doesn’t apologize and it’s ‘all your fault for overreacting, you and my (his) girlfriend’. I hang up on him.

The next day I try to get hold of my father who is still in town, and he refuses ALL my calls….all 4 of them! He has bought my brother’s lies and his side of the story…he’d rather trust an active violent addict/alcoholic than his 20 year clean and sober daughter. This is ALL ABOUT MALE PRIVILEGE! It is so clear to me now. My partner and I make the best of our time in town and we learn the local bus system so we can get around. We go to the downtown area which has an outdoor mall, as well as I give her a tour of the entire campus. Fortunately I had money in my bank account to pay for the motel room and the dinners we need to eat. We supplement with the groceries we’ve bought.

I fly back to Oakland and was NEVER SO HAPPY TO BE BACK TO THE BAY AREA! She flies onto see HER family, where all the same things happen with her nephew! It was weird!

She comes back a week or so later traumatized from both MY family situation and hers, and the commonality is as Butch DykeAmazons in recovery(clean and sober) NEITHER OF US would put up with our nephews’ violent, drunken behaviors and were forced to call cops and draw a line in the sand to say “No MORE.” To both them and our families. We WILL NOT be codependent, WE WILL NOT TOLERATE male violence, we WILL NOT look the other way. We bond around this, but we are also pretty traumatized around it.

So welcome to my 50th ‘Golden Year’! Other things happen, both healthwise to her from that stress and to me, economically where we scrape by the rest of the year. I have not talked to my father since, and my brother has called a few times. I have not talked to my nephew either.

Thank goodness for the Summer Solstice which I got to do on the Land with a bunch of women, and that changed the energy for me, and I had a great Dyke March and good Pride….and a job at this point. I sure hope 51 will be much, much, MUCH better…but these Butch DykeAmazons still keep their powerful FEMALE spirits alive and draw the lines and boundaries where need be, without giving into male or others’ lies and doubting our identities and who we are in a society that does NOT honor us! Yeah, and we saw Chaz on the parade route, look like nothing more than a butch dyke without tits and wearing a plain navy blue t shirt like she couldn’t give a shit about the honor bestowed upon her as ‘Celebrity Grand Marshal’.

Sorry FA- I could have sworn I posted this before, but maybe I just meant to. I often approve comments on the fly and mean to get back to something but depending on what’s going on IRL I sometimes forget. I apologize! Anyway, I hope you have a better next birthday is what I meant to say. The difference in the way we are treated and viewed as female bodied people is so pervasive and profound that I truly believe it would be too distressing for many- maybe all- women to hold it in the forefront of their awareness. It would drive us mad. It’s the same way all slaves are kept enslaved. Then sometimes it’s pushed in our face over and over during an experience like you described- thank goodness you were able to escape it back to your safe places. Again my apologies for just noticing that I never responded.

Thank you Gallus Mag…thanks for responding! I have a good mind to print this out and send it to my father, so he can see the other perspective(mine). And I sure won’t be sharing any more birthdays with them that’s for sure! Probably just my partner and I will celebrate. Or maybe I’ll bring a cake for Wednesday night the first night of EWF on the land. My 50th birthday in community party last year was good at EWF, and affirming. I’m sure hoping just energetically for all of us, that this will be a better year! I’ll be 51 in less than a month!
And you’re right, I think so many get so tired of being treated this way that they end up opting out one way or another because the pain gets too great(especially those who transition at older ages), or they numb themselves out with drugs/alcohol/overbusyness or a myriad of other addictions/obssessions to forget.
-In Sisterhood,
-FeistyAmazon

This makes me really angry. You are all so wrong. Feeling comfortable in mens clothing does not mean you transition. You transition because your body parts feel wrong, because everything in your mind is constantly screaming at you that you’re a man. And stop calling them “young women” They are men. You’re entirely disrespectful and should be ashamed of yourselves. I have plenty of lesbian female friends who wear mens clothing and don’t feel any need to be a male. I on the other hand am miserable. And probably will until I am done transitioning. You guys are discussing a topic that you have no right to and you are uneducated about it. We know that T can harm your body. Doctors have to tell you all of the risks. But in most cases its transition or die. Life or death. I cannot live my life as a female. “Why would anybody want to bind their breasts?” Nobody wants to. Its not so others don’t see them, I do it just so I don’t have to see them in the fricken mirror. You’re all rediculous and I am livid.

You and the trans above you are THE ONLY people in this thread not responding to the actual thoughts and words of the young women in the videos. I seriously doubt you even watched them which was A CONDITION OF COMMENTING HERE. Total disrespect to these young women. TOTAL FUCKING DISRESPECT !